Portland State University
AC-10: Support for Research

The Sustainability Scholars program offers competitive awards of $5,000 for four consecutive years to incoming freshmen in the University Honors College who are interested in pursuing undergraduate research with a focus on urban sustainability. Sustainability Scholars meet regularly as a group with their faculty mentor, Assistant Professor Olyssa Starry, to discuss, research, and implement ideas to make the Portland State campus more sustainable. They are encouraged to pursue sustainability-related internships, and agree to pursue a senior thesis on a sustainability-related topic.

The Institute for Sustainable Solutions is helping advance three research focal areas at PSU - Urban Sustainability, Ecosystem Services, Social Determinants of Health - with the goal of making our region more equitable, resource efficient, and economically vibrant. The Institute provides support for faculty research in sustainability by offering convening services, research grant proposal development support, administrative support, and matching and direct research funding as well as funding for student research positions, services, supplies, memberships and travel.

PSU's promotion and tenure guidelines state: "A significant factor in determining a faculty member's merit for promotion is the individual’s accomplishments in research and published contributions to knowledge in the appropriate field(s) and other professional or creative activities that are consistent with the faculty member’s responsibilities...It is strongly recommended that the following items be considered in evaluating research and other creative activities: d. Contributions to the development of collaborative, interdisciplinary, or interinstitutional research programs are highly valued. Mechanisms for evaluating such contributions may be employed. Evaluating collaborative research might involve addressing both individual contributions (e.g., quality of work, completion of assigned responsibilities) and contributions to the successful participation of others (e.g., skills in teamwork, group problem solving). f. Effective participation in disciplinary or interdisciplinary organizations’ activities should be evaluated in the context of their involvement of state-of-the-art knowledge and impact on peers and others. For example, this participation might include serving as editor of journals or other learned publications, serving on an editorial board, chairing a program committee for a regional, national, or international meeting, or providing scholarly leadership as an officer of a major professional organization. Evaluation of teaching and curricular contributions should not be limited to classroom activities. It also should focus on a faculty member’s contributions to larger curricular goals (for example, the role of a course in laying foundations for other courses and its contribution to majors, or contributions to broad aspects of general education or interdisciplinary components of the curriculum). Departments and individual faculty members can use the following guidelines when developing appropriate community outreach. Important community outreach can: - use disciplinary or interdisciplinary expertise to help groups organizations in conceptualizing and solving problems. In cases where a faculty member is involved in interdisciplinary teaching and/or research, evaluation must be solicited and provided by all appropriate academic departments."

The PSU library provides course and subject guides and has a sustainability history special collection for sustainability research and learning.